Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Minestrone soup AKA My garden exploded soup

Yesterday I went into my garden to walk through and pick a few things. We'd had a few cool days and it seemed like things were slowing down. That combined with the Early Blight had left me feeling underwhelmed with my garden. Little did I know what awaited me. There was produce everywhere! I had tomatoes, zucchini, onions, cabbage, cucumbers and swiss chard. In order to use up all of this bounty, I decided to make and can up soup. I start with raw veggies so that they don't cook to death during the pressure canning process.I layered onions, garlic, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, swiss chard,green beans and a few dried white beans. Then added some Italian seasoning (basil, marjoram, oregano and rosemary). The jars look really full when you're done. I'm sorry that I don't have exact measurements. In a pan I heated up some stock to boiling. For this batch I used some turkey broth that I had canned up, but you could use any kind that you like, or probably even water. The stock was poured into the jars and they were lidded and then put into the pressure canner. I canned them at 10 lbs of pressure for 75 minutes. When they came out they looked beautiful. I made the same soup last year and we loved it. When you heat it up just cook some pasta in a seperate pan and then put them together to serve. Healthy, delicious and only cost a few pennies. How can you beat that?

5 comments:

Looks good! I've been wanting to can some soups for the winter. Since my husband is a clammer I'd love to make clam chowder, but I'm a little too scared of canning shellfish... I think I need more experience before that venture!